Facts, influencers are useless in promoting a healthy lifestyle, especially that thin influencers do no improve people’s food choices. A study published in Frontiers in Psychology suggests that thin influencers do not motivate people to eat healthier.
For the study, the investigators recruited 146 participants between 11 to 13 years old from schools in Belgium. They were exposed to two fictitious influencers created for the study. The first one was thin and attractive while the other one was overweight. Influencers were shown carrots (healthy food) or cookies (unhealthy food). Participants were exposed to 1 of the 4 scenarios. The participants completed survey regarding the influencer’s credibility, admiration, trans-parasocial interactions, and food choices.
The researchers found that the thin influencer holding the health food choice did not promote healthy eating. In fact, the groups shown the thin influencer holding a healthy snack and the unhealthy snack chose the unhealthy snack at similar rates.
However, they also found that the overweight influencer was actually more effective in convincing the participants to choose the healthy snack. But not simply because they were fat. What they found was that participants were more likely to choose the healthy snack after seeing the overweight influencer holding the unhealthy snack, thus showing that overweight influencers are considered less credible. In other words, the participants probably chose the healthy snack because the overweight influencer holding the unhealthy snack convinced them that they shouldn’t eat it.
“This study shows that exposure to a thin-ideal influencer did not affect tweens’ choice for healthy vs. unhealthy foods. Hence, we suggest that using thin-ideal social media influencers does not stimulate a healthy diet among tweens,” researchers wrote in their study.
They further wrote, “However, exposure to an overweight influencer promoting unhealthy snacks can positively affect children’s choice of healthy food. These results could be explained by contrast effects, as the overweight influencer is also perceived as less credible and is admired less by the tweens. Based on this main result, it is difficult to draw a concrete recommendation for marketers or public policies when it comes to promoting healthy food to children and adolescents, as our results would suggest that the best way to promote a healthy diet is by using an overweight influencer promoting an unhealthy food product.”
In conclusion, influencers are likely just good entertainment and we hardly recommend them or their gimmicks as a source of actual important information such as health advise. Stay off of social media, it’ll rot your brains in more ways than you can think of. Influencers aren’t doing anything really important.
Please use sources and make decisions based on evidence and not on fancy production techniques or internet gimmicks.
S De Jans et al. Impact of thin-ideals in influencer posts promoting healthy vs. unhealthy foods on tweens’ healthy food choice behavior. Frontiers in Psychology. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.789069
